LYAC rules, results, blog, and other Activity Contests in Europe

Archive for May, 2009

The idea to join forces with LY2VA came during conversations after one of the LYAC/NAC tuesday activities. Aloyzas LY2VA (ex-UP2BBC) is one of the V/U/SHF pioneers in Lithuania and holder of many “firsts”. Photo: Aloyzas LY2VA at LY2WR Club station.

We decided it should be interesting to try one of the SHF bands above 23cm during contest weekend because of enhanced station activity. LY2VA promised to build a 8-10W PA for his existing DB6NT for 13cm (2320 MHz) and he did exactly that. Photo: LY2VA 13/23/70cm, LY4U 2m

So it becomes clear - the May 2/3 weekend is going to be first serious 13cm DX operation from LY, and the adrenaline levels rise… Photo: 40m high brick tower with LY2WR at the top, and commercially used steel radio tower besides.

On friday afternoon the whole team of 3 (LY2VA, LY3BF, LY4U) is already at the new LY2WR KO24FO site - dominating hill in the central part of LY (240m a.s.l. + 40m brick tower). Photo: 144 MHz 11el (top), 432 MHz 20el (below)

The place is also somewhat remote from any industrial activities, so the bands are relatively quiet, except for few bad insulators on nearby 110KV line.

We had to extend one of the two masts to fit a 50cm dish to be used on 13cm. 2m/70cm/23cm antennas were there already. Photo: 1296 MHz loop-yagi and 2320 MHz dish at 285m a.s.l.

Friday evening - we are all set. First QSO on 13cm with LY3AY (50km) 59/59 - all seem to work as expected. Starting to listen to the beacons. And indeed, as the air cools fast after sunset, temperature inversion occurs - at around 22UT ES0SHF/B on 23cm is already 599 (460 km). Unfortunately even on 70cm/2m all CQ-s go empty - everybody’s gone to bed. So do we, take a few hours break.

Saturday morning 05UT - ES0SHF fading out fast, but OZ7IGY and couple of SK7 beacons on 70/23/13cm are there, desperately looking for scandinavian QSO partners on ON4KST Microwave Chat. A luck finally - Christian OZ2LD from JO54TU logs in, so we quickly QSY to 2320 MHZ and make easy QSO which is first ever LY-OZ on 13cm and new LY record for that band at 823km. See fine Christian’s station here: http://www.sitecenter.dk/oz2ld/Photo: LY2VA in QSO with Vitalijus LY3AY on 13cm - a very new band here in LY.

14:00 saturday - the contest begins, for the first time we have 3 operators and a capability to operate 3 bands simultaneously. Even with that, every QSO is difficult - the main european activity starts about 800km away. I would like to ask SP/OK/OM and Scandinavian stations to turn antennas more often to LY - there are always few stations willing to participate in these large European contests. Photo: an HF IC-735 with 23/13cm transverters on top, 2m/70cm FT-857, ON4KST chat as an essential part of today’s VHF contesting, 2m/70cm/23cm FT-736R.

2m highlights - two little pileups of DL stations from JO60/61/62/70/71 area at around 21-22UT, and a HA/OM pileup from JN97/98/87/88/89/KN06 around 00UT. Later a fine SSB QSO with DL0GTH for 2m ODX 1020km - the QSB went up just enough to exchange contest numbers, never heard them again. Called OE5BGN/P at 976km for about 30min but could not break the DL/OK stations wall. Relatively easy QSOs with many OK/OM mountain-top stations - thank you for not forgetting to turn antennas towards LY. Photo: QSO-map LY2WR 144 MHz from 1-st IARU subregional VHF Contest, March 2009. Taken from http://iaru.oevsv.at (where everybody can send a log now).

As it most often happens, there was no inversion thus no tropo for the contest period, the long try on 13cm with Pertti OH2AXH resulted in only some traces of 13cm CW signal, impossible for QSO. Still decided to try 13cm with Ulf SM7LCB JO86GH on sunday morning. Yes! A weak CW signal comes out of noise, and 0730UT we complete a 539/519 QSO at 534km for the first ever LY-SM on 13cm band. Listen to this QSO at SM7LCB website.Photo: 13/23cm antennas and clear horizon to East for 100s of kilometers, from where only one station was QRV - EW1ST…

All in all, this was one more great VHF DX and Contest weekend, looking for many more in future! LY2WR contest report is below. Thanks again to everybody for turning antennas to LY and spotting us in DX-cluster, 73 and cul! Photo: Arvydas LY3BF prepares to dismantle the 13cm dish as we pack for home after the Contest.